Problem-Solving Sociology

Problem-solving sociology attempts to use the traditions of sociological research to solve real-world problems, and uses the attempt to grapple with real-world problems as a way to reformulate understandings of society and renew or reinvent those traditions. This book provides advice for how to turn an interest in solving major social problems into research projects that begin to do so. The book provides suggested methods and tools, models of successful problem-solving research conducted by established scholars as well as by undergraduate and graduate students, defenses against some common objections, and an exploration of where this kind of work fits in contemporary sociology.

Social Organization, Macro Phenomena, and Symbolic Interactionism

This chapter analyzes the study of social organization within the interactionist perspective as a historically conditioned pursuit as well as a conditioning influence on the interactionist analysis of macro phenomena. The argument demonstrates that while the development of the social-organization concept helped to focus scholarly attention on the interactionist analysis of macro phenomena, the explicitly interactionist study of social organization and macro phenomena in contemporary sociology is suffering from a lack of attention—despite it having been a significant part of the interactionist toolkit from the earliest expressions of the perspective. The chapter identifies a number of the interactionist analyses of macro phenomena, and the chapter concludes with a set of directions for future development and reinvigorating of the interactionist analyses of social organization and macro phenomena.

Petera L. Bergera przejście od teorii sekularyzacji do teorii desekularyzacji

In this paper I present the evolution of views of the american sociologist Peter L. Berger which is a transition from the theory of secularization into the theory of desecularization. He was one of the major representatives of the secualrization paradigm and since the 1990’s he became the creator and adherent of the desecularization paradigm. Desecularization means a persistent and strong presence of religion in the modern world or as a social process it is a reverse version of secularization. According to Berger contemporary sociology of religion should take care of research on the forces affecting mutually secularization and desecularization because “antisecularism is a phenomenon just as important in the modern world as secuarlization.” Berger until the end of 1970’s did focus on the analysis of the secularization processes and later on he commited his research to the issue if desecularization processes.

The crossroads of contemporary sociology and the crisis of its subject and vocational identity

Contemporary sociology is at a fateful crossroads. The paper points to some aspects of its crisis as a science and vocation, the forms of its cognitive pathology and the erosion of positive identity in the universe of sciences and the modern professional division of labour. Indicating the causes and consequences of this crisis, the author concludes that it cannot be overcome only by technical improvement of the methodology of empirical research, but requires profound efforts of the new generation of sociologists, and new answers. Otherwise, Peter Berger's pessimistic predictions about the obsolescence and bankruptcy of sociologists and sociologists might come true. The conclusions we reached in our problematization of this issue can be summarized as follows: 1) the need to redefine contemporary sociology in the spirit of globalization of its subject as a multicomplex science of the laws of structure and dynamics of the global world system and the theoretical-empirical study of phenomena and processes at all levels of social organization. macro, meso, micro) from the perspective of the methodological principle of dialectical concrete totality; 2) building a new theoretical synthesis in the form of a multidisciplinary integrated paradigm; 3) opening sociology through multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research towards new challenging fields of the future that has begun; 4) redefining its vocation identity in the Mils-Bourdieu key as a martial discipline, radical-critical, reflexive-engaged, emancipatory and actionist sociology.

Edward Shils as Stranger, Social Thought as Vocation

This essay is a response to Struan Jacobs, “Recovering the Thought of Edward Shils,” which is an extended review of Adair-Toteff and Turner’s The Calling of Social Thought. It considers Edward Shils as a “stranger,” in the sense defined by Georg Simmel, relative to contemporary sociology. Christian Smith’s claim that American sociology is implicitly pursuing a “sacred project” is invoked, in contrast with Shils’ vision for consensual sociology. The expansion by CST to “Social Thought” as a calling (vocation), and its ties to science as understood by Polanyi, are strongly affirmed.

Sociology on the Way to New Social Analytics: The Crisis in Sociology and the Problem of Artificial Intelligence

At the turn of the 21st century, sociology as a science has become an object of criticism both from inside and outside the discipline. At the same time, the late-20th and early 21st centuries endorse an unprecedented splash of technological development, specifically the advancement of artificial intelligence technologies. The paper tries to show a relation between these two tendencies. For the authors, two questions are in the spotlight: (1) how have evaluations of the professional sociologists on what is happening to the discipline changed over the last 20 years? and (2) how could these evaluations be related to the research questions that the development of AI technologies brings to social sciences? In the first part of the paper, the authors examine and compare the participants' positions in the discussion about the future of sociology organized by the journal Contemporary Sociology in 2000. The second part of the paper examines two articles published in 2019 where it was proclaimed “the end of sociology.” The paper discusses why the debates about the crisis of sociology have shifted towards radical criticism during these years and how new arguments refine and supplement the previous discussions. In conclusion, the authors propose one way out of the crisis in sociology. They suggest the radical renewal of sociological science into a-typical and anti-disciplinary social analytics with the central orientation into “artificial sociality” inquiries.

Resurrecting Proudhon’s idea of justice

Much of the writing of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) is neglected within sociology. Yet building on the work of Auguste Comte, Proudhon was an influential, if controversial, social theorist throughout the 19th century. Proudhon, “the father of anarchism,” held an understanding of progress antagonistic toward that of Marx, his contemporary within the emerging socialist movement. While Comte and Marx focused on knowledge or class struggle respectively as the source of progress within society, Proudhon argued that only justice generates social progress. Several notable French sociologists have written on the importance of Proudhon’s work, but contemporary sociology continues to neglect his ideas. In what follows, I first outline Proudhon’s place in sociology. Then, I describe his law of progress and the “three revolutions in justice.” Next, I derive several theoretical propositions from Proudhon’s idea of justice. Lastly, I examine what a serious study of Proudhonian justice can contribute to the discipline of sociology as a whole.

The Application of Durkheimian Theories in the 21st Century

Classical sociological theorists have been criticised for being too vague, incomplete, and ever too conservative and notwithstanding all the efforts and consideration that has been dedicated to linking different parts of Durkheimian thought to the law itself, contemporary sociology and criminology frequently disregard its potential within the current study of law and criminology. This paper, however, will strive to explore and prove, through a Durkheimian lens, how classical sociological frameworks can provide us with a series of diverse aspects to analyse modern values and circumstances.